I really don't much want to get into a gender politics war here, but the point of a cover is to sell books. Me, if I were picking the five authors to put on the cover, I'd probably have gone with Bruce Sterling, Peter S. Beagle, Garth Nix, Gwenyth Jones and Kathleen Ann Goonan. The reason I would've chosen them is because *I* happen to know all those names, but I don't read short stories and I have no idea at all if Jeffery Ford or Lucius Shepard might be surefire bestsellers when it comes to trying to get people to pick up a book of short stories. I am not, personally, inclined to think that it's indicative of deliberate discrimination.

A couple weeks ago when I was in New York I got to meet the art director at Del Rey, who rather tentatively informed me they'd probably be taking some liberties with the main character of THE QUEEN'S BASTARD, Belinda's, dagger. I said something to the effect of, "Well, no shit," because the dagger was given to her when she was a very, very small child. The whole thing is about six inches long, because it was scaled to a child's hand. It's symbolic and important in the book, but it would look *stupid* on the cover if it was done to scale. I said it was *fine* to take liberties; that what I wanted was a sexy, beautiful cover that would sell a lot of books. It doesn't have to be literally perfect. (The art director said something to the effect of, "Oh my God. Can we keep this one?")

Similarly with the Walker Papers, for that matter. My editor, when she sent me the PDF for the URBAN SHAMAN cover, said, "Now, I know this isn't exactly what we discusssed...." which made me go *agh* with worry, and then I opened up this file with an incredibly, incredibly gorgeous cover. It *wasn't* exactly what we'd discussed, or hell, even close, but it was *exactly* the kind of artwork that book needed. Jo's got a bracelet. A bracelet is featured on the covers of all the books. Jo's bracelet looks *nothing like that*. Jo doesn't wear belly shirts or low-cut jeans or have a cool belt like the one on the covers. It doesn't matter. The covers are beautiful and they are representationally perfect. They give the right feeling for the books. That's their job.

I expect jlassen did not spend any time thinking about whether he was representing a "fair" male to female ratio on the front cover of the book, because it's not about being "fair". I expect he thought, "Ok, which of these names are most likely to sell this book?" and took the five that seemed most promising. This is not intended as an insult to anyone. It's not belittling anyone. It's not gender warfare. Perhaps it's not fair, either, but chilluns, life isn't fair. jlassen is trying to do business, and yes, all right, sure, perhaps it's a shame that Bruce Sterling and Peter S. Beagle are more likely to sell books than Kathleen Ann Goonan or Gwenyth Jones, but they're Bruce Sterling and Peter S. Beagle, for heaven's sake. They're more likely to sell books than almost anybody in the sf/f industry. I don't think it's got much to do with their plumbing.